Manny Machado

Hi, do you have a second to talk about Dinelson Lamet? Seven innings pitched and seven strikeouts last night, what da f? He’s gangbusters when he wants to be, then he leaves us hanging with a multi earned run seizure once a month. Not cool man. Anyway, I’m from the church of quality DFS arms. You could throw a dart and pick anyone from tonight’s terrible slate of pitching, but since Lamet confirmed that there are some semi-reliable guys still around, Jacob Faria ($8,100) is your winner today. He threw 8 K’s across 6.1 innings last time he was in Toronto, and against a Blue Jays team that has hit .217 all week, hallelujah, praise Father Faria all night long. Here’s who else I like for this fine Wednesday:

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Between Cody Bellinger, Aaron Judge, Rafael Devers, Andrew Benintendi, Ozzie Albies, Amed Rosario, Rhys Hoskins and Yoan Moncada baseball is staying at a Renaissance Hotel. “Is that a Cal Ripken mint rookie card under my pillow and a Beckett Baseball Card Guide in the side table? What a great hotel!” That’s me staying at a baseball-themed Renaissance Hotel. Oh, and this is barely touching a majority of Ralph’s top 100 fantasy baseball prospects. By the way, I Googled top 100 baseball rookies from the preseason, and Baseball America had Dansby Swanson, Josh Bell, Tyler Glasnow, Jharel Cotton, Jose De Leon, Robert Gsellman and Albert Almora in the top 10. (Judge was 12th, Bellinger 19th and Ben Grieve 5th. Okay, not Grieve, but you get the drift.) Rookies are a crapshoot, but baseball ate some beans and is shooting crap! (That sounded better in my head.) Yesterday, Rafael Devers hit his 5th and 6th homers, coming in only his 16th game, as he hits .339. He’s only 20 years old!!! Triple exclamation marks due to sticky keyboard because of Giancarlo, my apologies. If I had the time or motivation, I’d go back to the comments from people who said within three days of Devers’ call-up that he’s overmatched. Yo, I think you might want to hold back your hot takes for a minute. For 2018, Devers or Benintendi? Okay, I’m gonna hold back my own hot takes, but you’re seriously considering the guy who’s only been up for two-plus weeks. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Happy Bryce Harper Replacement Week! :::sobs into the couch cushion I have been carrying around since watching the video of Harper tumbling over that base:::

The cruel baseball gods took Harper away from us just after we got Trout back. As of this writing, there is no timetable for his return from what they are calling a “significant bone bruise.” I’m no doctor (sorry to peel back the curtain), but how the heck did that non-contact injury get a bone bruise diagnosis? I thought for sure he tore every CL in his body. I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear that he tore his UCL from reaching for his knee so fast. But a bone bruise? Interesting. Let’s just hope he wasn’t evaluated by the Mets’ training staff because “bone bruise” is going to very quickly become “Oh crap, his knee actually isn’t there anymore. We can’t find it anywhere.”

Now, there is no replacing Harper’s production on your fantasy team, especially in the middle of August. That much is obvious. If you’re lucky, you took Grey’s advice about selling a superstar to heart and cashed in at the deadline. I have Harper in a keeper league where I currently sit in first place, so I have to decide if I want to deal him now to make a playoff push, pray he comes back this season and helps me, or just accept the fact that he is done for the fantasy season but still keep him for next year. I am probably going with option B/C, if we’re being honest with each other here.

I’m removing him from our beloved 100 while we wait to see how he looks this week. Hopefully, the baseball gods decide to heal him from his mystery bruise quickly and we can have him back. But it seems more likely we are going to be without him for most, if not all, of the fantasy season. Now, enough crying about Harper (at least publicly). Anyway, to the notes…

Pretty scary how similar those numbers are, right? A is Andrelton Simmons and B is Alex Bregman. The only big difference when you dive a little deeper is that Simmons has been consistently producing for pretty much the entire season, while Bregman has been a bit more streaky and pretty much disappeared in June.

Due to their continuing dominance throughout the season, I’m endorsing the two big Dominican arms on the slate for tonight, Ervin Santana, $18,200 vs the Brewers and Carlos Martinez, $16,300 at the Royals. Fun fact, Ervin Santana’s real name is Johan Ramon Santana. Yeah, his birth name was Johan Santana. Do you remember another SP named Johan Santana? In case you forgot, he was a two time Cy Young winner and he also pitched for the Twins? Yeah I remember that, I guess it’s ironic or even poetic justice that a guy who changed his name in order to not be confused with one of the most dominant lefty’s ended up on the same team as his predecessor. Ervin is facing the Brewers tonight, who rank second in Ks versus RHP. Yes, please, and thank you! CMart has a tough task against the Royals tonight, but I have feeling he’s going to take advantage of a team that just wrapped up a double header yesterday. Now that the pitching is locked and loaded, let’s take a look at our offensive targets for tonight.

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Let’s just go on what logic tells us. Not Logic, the rapper, but logic the thing you’ve been chipping away at with your weed smoking. In 2015, Billy Beane traded Drew Pomeranz to the Padres for Yonder Alonso. At the time, we have to assume Beane wanted a slugging first baseman. A guy that could hit 25+ homers. Okay, so they dealt with terrible Alonso for two years, and, then, when they get what you think they had to be hoping for, they trade him for a prospect (Boog Powell) that many believe is a bench player. Now, even if Powell pans out, you had in Alonso what you wanted already. I’m beginning to think Beane just does trades to do trades. If you were to hear in fifteen years that Beane was trying to make the A’s worse to get out of Oakland, would anyone be surprised? Moneyball 2 is going to be starring Jamie Kennedy and straight-to-DVD. Any hoo! Alonso loses some value going to the M’s because he’ll likely platoon with Danny Valencia (hit his 13th homer on Sunday), though, I guess it could be argued this is a positive move for Alonso, because he’s hit .188 vs. lefties this year. As for Powell, the A’s might promote and platoon him because what do they have to lose? Or rather, what do they have to win? If they’re lucky, Boog will bring some of his trademark ribs. Anyway, here’s what else I saw this weekend in fantasy baseball:

And suddenly, it’s August. Week 18 of the season. Ahhh, I remember the good ol’ days of April, when former World Series contenders (*cough* Blue Jays *cough*) still had hopes of surfing their wave of 2016 success into 2017. I also remember the very first post I wrote for you lovelies, on April 8th, because here we are again, on a new go-around on the great Monopoly board of life (do pass “Go”; do collect $200), with the Phillies facing the Rockies in Colorado. The last time this match-up happened on a Saturday, poor old Jeremy Guthrie gave up 10 runs—on his birthday, to boot. I don’t wish that on anyone, but I do want all those runs again! A platter of relatively slim pickings on the pitching front has me wishing I didn’t have to start any pitchers today in my FanDuel slate, but we do what we must: fade (just a little) on pitching while paying up for hitting. Luckily, there are a couple of reasonably priced pitchers today — Gerrit Cole and Drew Pomeranz, I’m looking at you — around whom we can build our lineups.

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Now that we are a few weeks into the second half, we are able to take a look at players and their rest of season rankings a little differently. For starters, we can see how players are starting the second half. Even though it is only a few days off (or not off, for those who participate in the Home Run Derby and the All-Star Game) and is not even technically the real halfway point of the season, the All-Star break seems to hit the reset button for some players.

Some players get off to a hot start in the second half and ride the wave for a hot August and September, while others seem to lose their momentum and start off ice cold. You could write a book on the different explanations and theories about why it happens or whether or not the Home Run Derby messes up your swing or the All-Star Game schedule itself is exhausting, but we all know as fantasy owners that we have to really pay attention to our squads coming out of the break.

Players who had unreal, otherworldly breakout first halves like Aaron Judge have come back to earth a little bit, while players we had come to rely on in previous years who had disappointing first halves like Christian Yelich have gotten hot. If those disappointing players don’t get off to a good start to the second half, though, we have to make the tough decision about whether or not it is time to move on.

And that is the other way we have to look at these rankings, with time in mind. Depending on your league and format, you probably have roughly two months left in your season and about a month and a half or less until the playoffs in leagues that have them. Carlos Gonzalez is the 600th ranked player in Razzball’s year-to-date player rater, but he is still owned in 93% of RCLs and 67% of ESPN leagues as apparently, Razznation is still waiting for CarGo to turn back into the hitter he has shown he is over the year.

And while Gonzalez has been somewhat better in the second half and has sown signs of life, at some point time is going to run out. I gave up on him weeks ago and have not looked back. In the leagues where I had him I am in first or second place and am clawing to either stay there or overtake the top team, and I just don’t have any more time to wait on him. Granted, I gave up on him when it looked like he wasn’t going to have regular playing time anymore, and that is no longer the case since the Rockies can’t stay healthy, but I don’t regret the decision. Even after showing he can still hit a little in the second half, he still only has a 0.02 PR15. That isn’t enough to make me regret the decision or convince me he is going to get hot.

For Gonzalez this season, his Hard%, FB%, and HR/FB% are all down, while his AVG, OBP, and SLG are all well below his career averages. Most troubling to me is the SLG, which is currently sitting at .341. It would not be surprising to find out that he has been playing through injuries all season because 1. He is pretty much always injured and 2. These numbers are awful. You know I love creating these graphs, so check out this one:

Last week, we added Tommy Pham and his pal (unconfirmed) Marwin Gonzalez to the realm of the 100. This week, we’re feeling so good that we’re moving them on up the rankings. Pham has the second best PR15 (ESPN leagues) right now (13.01), behind only the respected Coors Field masher Nolan Arenado. Marwin, while he has a respectable 5.26 PR15 that is good for 34th overall, is moving up because he suddenly has an inside track to playing time.

Someone ask Grey if I get any bonus points for running it back on players in back-to-back weeks AND rolling with a double player reference headline. I was going to go with a Gregory Polanco reference but decided Matt Adams was both more ridiculous and had the added bonus of allowing me to use former teammates (kind of). More bonus points? Let me know what Grey says.

As for Carlos Correa, well, you guys know already, right? I’m dropping him from the Top 100 because he is going to miss most of the rest of the season. He could potentially return and help you for fantasy playoffs or the last couple weeks, but we won’t know for sure for a few more weeks. This IS good news for Marwin Gonzalez, who I focused on last week, as there is suddenly another opening in the lineup for him. Obviously, hold Correa for now, but I’m dropping him from the ranks of the beloved and pouring out some Coors Light for him.

I never thought there would be a week where I would be adding Matt Adams and removing Carlos Correa. 2017 is bumming me out, but I promise to make it one full article without mentioning Super Balls (this doesn’t count!). Screw it, let’s add Steven Souza, too. He’s got 20 home runs to go with a .272 average, .239 ISO, an increased Hard%, and what looks to be an increased approach at the plate. He has been on the fringe, but I managed to make room for him this week. I give up, 2017. You hear me? I give up! You win!

Anyway, here are some other notes on the additions and subtractions for this week…

Don’t ask me how I stumbled across this (*cough* Wikipedia *cough*), but today I learned that a “toxophilite” is a “lover or devotee of archery; an archer.” And that’s me and Stream-o-Nator both today: lovers of Chris Archer versus the Rangers. Archers and Rangers! I feel like I’m assembling a party for Dungeons & Dragons rather than a lineup for FanDuel. Or maybe I’m just reading too much fantasy right now (Lev Grossman and The Magicians series! Spoiler: it’s awesome! It’s the Narnia books crossed with Catcher in the Rye!) and jonesing for a quest of some sort. Anyway, as usual, I’ll throw out some ideas for how your ragtag squad of adventurers might come together — more details below, but in summary it’s a good day for cheap-ish pitching and good stacking. Let’s restring our bows, fill our quivers, and practice sliding our swords in and out of our scabbards so we don’t look like dummies, and get to it.

New to FanDuel? Scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond? Well, be sure to read our content and subscribe to the DFSBot for your daily baseball plays. Just remember to sign up through us before jumping into the fray. It’s how we know you care!